won-der n. 1. rapt attention or astonishment at something awesomely mysterious or new to one's experience 2. a feeling of doubt or uncertainty
won-der v. 1. to be in a state of wonder: MARVEL 2. to feel curiosity or doubt

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Buzzin' About Bees

This past Saturday the boys and I went to a local nature center that we belong to for a special program all about honeybees. We were able to take a little hike in the prairie and one of the bee-keepers came out to show us a frame from one of the hives. It was covered with bees! I have long wanted to convince DH to let us get a hive for our property so we could harvest the honey. So far he has not given me the thumbs up. One cool thing is that the nature center has started a bee conservation program where people can call them up if they have honeybees in their wall or in a tree on their property and the bee conservation guy (like the guy below.....in fact it probably IS the guy below!) will come and rescue the bees. Then they are taken back to the hives at the nature center and (hopefully) they will start up a new hive. Isn't that cool? We learned a lot about honeybees and how important they are and how their numbers are declining. I do think our family is pretty busy this fall, but maybe I can learn more over the winter and talk DH into adding bees to the "farmstead" next summer. After all, they can't be more work than chickens and we added chickens last year.

Here's a close-up of the honey frame. The bees had been "smoked" before he took the frame out so they were calm and not being aggressive.

Here are some pretty black-eyed Susan flowers that were in the prairie.

If any of you reading this raise honeybees, I would LOVE to hear from you about your experience so leave me a comment, 'kay?